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PCS Tournament 2023 Announcement
Hey Stackers! We know you've been waiting for a new PCS tournament, so we're here to deliver. Introducing the biggest PYRA tournament to date: PCS Atlanta 2023. Or as I feel everyone will be calling it soon.... PYRAtlanta!
There's a lot to be excited about for this tournament: a $3000 prize pool, travel funds for our Top 4 ranked stackers in 2022, an In-Person Tournament AND Broadcast, New World Records, and so much more, This blog post will cover it all in case our new video doesn't.
Before that, make sure you register for the tournament! You can apply for the tournament here.
What is PYRAtlanta? What's in it for Me?
PCS Atlanta is PYRA's biggest competitive step forward yet. For starters, this is going to be a 2-day tournament (June 17th-18th 2023) and it will also be broadcasted LIVE on Youtube and Tiktok for both days as the event goes down in Atlanta, GA. As for the prize pool, we'll be rewarding $3000 USD to the stackers that finish within Top 8 in the competition, with $1500 of that going to the stacker that wins the tournament.
We also have 2 new events we'll be opening the tournament with for everyone to compete in: Blindfolded Cycle and Timed-Cycle Relay. These events will likely see new World Records holders and Blindfolded Cycle's new World Record holder will also receive a cash prize! Every single PYRA World Record is up for grabs now, and it's a race to see who gets the first certificates of 2023.
You may have noticed that the event location was listed as TBD in Atlanta, and that's because we are still finalizing some things with the venue and don't want to mislead people if something were to go awry. Assuming everything goes well, we should be in the Norcross High School Venue (the same Venue that Hosted WSSA HOTlanta in 2022).
What Will the Format Be?
Because this is a 2-day Tournament and because we do not know for sure how many stackers there will be, we can't ensure this will 100% be the format on the day but this is most likely the rundown we will have.
Before we announce the format it should be known that 8 stackers have already qualified for the 2nd day of competition, which are the Top 8 stackers in the PYRA Point Rankings from 2022. They are:
Chan Keng Ian
Evan Cloud
William Orrell
Trey Griffith
Kareef Ullah
Will Allen
Naoki Sekine
Tyler Hollis
Those 8 stackers will not have to compete at all on Day 1, but can compete in the first event if they want to. Speaking of which, our first event on Day 1 will be Time Trials: think of this as a combination of prelims & finals, it's setting your base times in 3-3-3, 3-6-3, Cycle & optionally Blindfolded Cycle, Timed 3-6-3 Relay and Timed Cycle Relay. The first 3 stacks are required and the rest are optional, and it's 1 warmup and 4 attempts for each of the individual stacks. The top 32* stackers overall move onto the 2nd event of Day 1: a Double Elimination Bracket for Head-to-Head Cycle competition. This will pair up stackers based off of overalls from event 1 and it will also be 1 warmup and the first stacker to win 4 rounds wins the match. The final 8 stackers left standing in this bracket will qualify for Day 2 of the competition to meet the other 8 previously listed stackers waiting for them.
Day 2's first event for our Top 16 stackers will be 4 groups of 4, also Double Elimination Cycle. Same rules except this time it's first stacker to win 5 rounds wins the match instead of 4, and the top 2 stackers from each group will move on to the final event in the tournament, a Single Elimination Playoffs bracket. The final 8 stackers will be placed into said bracket with zero second chances, same 1 warmup and first to win 5 rounds wins the match all the way up until, the grand finals: The Grand Finals will be first to win 10 rounds wins the match AND the entire tournament!
As always stackers are free to use whichever sets of cups they'd like as long as they are in range of our size diameters, as for mats and timers stackers will be allowed to use their own equipment as long as it works the PCS tournament displays and the timers go to the 1000th of a second, we will likely prepare a separate table for stackers who wish to use their own equipment instead of the equipment PCS will have on tables for the tournament.
Conclusion
PCS Atlanta will be the largest tournament PYRA has done, and may even be one of the largest tournaments of the year. We're so excited for this to finally become a reality and a HUGE thank you to Ethan Jones (Tournament Director) for helping PYRA take this head-on. We'll be posting updates as they go along, and tickets should be on sale soon. It's $40 per stacker ticket if you purchase on the day but it you purchase online beforehand it's only $25, so please register and fill out your applications ASAP so we can prepare in advance. We've invested so much into this project and we can't wait to see it unravel for everyone to enjoy, thank you for reading and as always...
Keep on Stacking.
~PYRA